midi-questions

after working on my sound for quite a while it's time to get more into all
that midi-stuff. are there any recomondations for literature (or other
stuff) about that?
since i'm just getting into this (even most units i got are
midi-controlable) and most of you guys work with midi quite a bit, what
midi-controler would you recomend? i heard a lot of good things about the
new nobels controler.
it would be great if you could help me on this one
thanks in advance
lorenz